A little acclaim for our own long fellow: Thank you, thank you, thank you from all the volunteers, workshop participants, and audience members for your great article ("They're Poets, and They Know It," January 19, Dave Amber). Your review is imaginative, funny, and, best of all, a terrific endorsement of great poetry at a great venue.
Miles Coon
Director, Palm Beach Poetry Festival
Buried Power Lines
The mayor needs beautification too: The misleading article titled "The Mayor's New Digs" by Trevor Aaronson in the January 19 New Times twists the facts. Aaronson alleges a conflict of interest because the mayor has just purchased a condominium at the under-construction Villas of Positano, which is directly in front of overdue Hollywood Beach infrastructure improvements.
Seven years ago, beach residents were invited to make suggestions for a new master plan. Hundreds of residents spent many hours writing, discussing, and arguing about how to improve our beach neighborhood. We encouraged buried power lines, a modernized Broadwalk, beautiful street ends, and many enhancements. The mayor and Hollywood Commissioners approved our recommendations for the new master plan, and it took many years for the design specifications to be accepted by the state, county, and a variety of agencies. Now that the construction is under way, it is unreasonable to disparage our mayor for benefiting from the collective vision of hundreds of beach residents, the city manager, city planners, and Hollywood commissioners.
The Hollywood Beach Civic Association will be proud to welcome Dr. and Mrs. Giulianti as our most prominent residents of our newly improved beach community.
Ron Clasky
President, Hollywood Beach Civic Association
Cavorting With the Hez Boys
Is Baghdad Boy a terrorist symp? It's clear the rich liar "Baghdad Boy," a.k.a. Farris Hassan, is anything but an innocent schoolboy ("Baghdad Boy," Bob Norman, January 12). Why would his thieving dad let him go to Iraq during a war, and how did he come to visit the terrorist group Hezbollah? Why did he visit them? With whom did he meet?
I thought those who met with our enemies were arrested and put in jail for cavorting with terrorists! Hassan the younger said he "wanted to show Americans that Hezbollah is, in fact, a 'good organization' that's fighting for the Shiite people in Lebanon." Really? How? By murdering innocent Israelis for the past 25 years?
I'm convinced Hassan is a terrorist sympathizer. At best! If he went to Iraq to promote "democracy," then I'll donate a year's salary to Hassan's favorite Islamo-fascist terrorist group. Al Qaeda? Hezbollah? The Taliban? Islamic Jihad? The PLO?
Harvey Slavin
Hollywood
Muscling the Muscle
Makes your spine tingle: Superb writing and reporting in your January 12 article "Muscles, Murder, and a Messiah, Part 2" (Trevor Aaronson). This is a chilling and fascinating tale!
Asa Boynton
Hollywood
Plame Throwing
Can we be just a little more effusive? What a great article, "Spreading the Plame" (Bob Norman, December 1). God, it is just fabulous! I have sent it to everybody I can possibly think of, including Arianna Huffington. Man, it is just the best. My praise doesn't go high enough. I loved it, loved it, loved it.
Jamie Angus
Henderson, Nevada
Give 'Em Muskets
The brass sits pretty: I read daily as one Broward County resident after another screams about what the feds will or won't do ("Deputy Down," August 25, Trevor Aaronson). Who cares? The fact of the matter is, if you live in Broward, you're screwed. BSO is a disaster. I am talking a full-blown, across-the-board melting pot of corruption in the upper ranks, resulting in an unprepared, no-morale BSO with little to no training in deflecting or reacting to terrorists.
Your average deputy has only the sidearm at his hip to protect citizens. Due to Sheriff Jenne's disdain for firearms, deputies are not authorized to carry shotguns or rifles unless they are in the "approved electronic locking rack," which has never been ordered by the department.
In training, the deputies were shown a nuclear/biological/chemical outfit, or NBC suit, in its packaging. They were not allowed to try on a suit because they have only a few of them and don't want to take them out of the packaging. Speaking from experience, unless you practice putting the suit on and taking it off on a regular basis, you will not do so correctly and seamlessly.
Could it be that marble bathrooms, dark-cherry paneling, and leather sofas are better-suited for protecting the citizens of Broward than equipment for the road patrol deputies? I don't know; maybe I'm the only one who can't figure it out, seeing as how the majority of residents of the county didn't even flinch.
As good as your reporters have been in the past, they have only touched on what is really happening in this county.
J. M. Evans
'04 Candidate for Broward County Sheriff
Via the Internet
Correction
In an Art review on January 19, New Times published the wrong address for the Frons/Martin Modern and Contemporary Art Collection. The correct address is 1071 Floranada Rd., Oakland Park.
